Computer systems conventionally display forms with fields into which a user enters information such as a name, birth date, password, and the like. Modern Internet browsers display forms by rendering Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) on web pages to generate fields that can be populated by a user. Web sites that accept shopping orders from on-line customers, for example, generate forms requiring that a customer enter the customer's name, address, telephone number, and credit card information. Usually, the user must repeatedly enter this information each time the site is visited. Although information entered by the user is stored on the web site, the form does not retain the information for future use if the web site is revisited.
Some web sites can recognize previous customers and thus avoid re-prompting for the same information on a subsequent visit. Nonetheless, if the user visits a new web site that he or she has never before visited, the same information must be re-entered on a different form generated by the different web site. Much of the information requested on these forms is redundant or readily available from other sources (e.g., name, address, date of birth), yet the creators of different forms generally have no easy way to share information previously entered by the user on an earlier form. Privacy issues have thwarted many potential solutions to this problem, and it is cumbersome for web site designers to include special logic on their web site to recognize previous visitors to the site.
So-called “cookies” (small data files stored by a web site on the user's local computer) are sometimes used to retain information locally that can be recalled later by a web site that the user has previously visited. Such “cookies,” however, vary widely from site to site, and require cumbersome programming logic on each web site to implement them. Moreover, users can block the storage of these cookies, and users may be generally suspicious of their use by untrusted web sites. In addition, conventional web browsers will not transmit a given cookie to web servers with different secondary domains (e.g., a cookie written by a.com will not be shared with a server from b.com).
One attempt to solve some of these problems was a prior art feature embedded in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 product known as a “profile assistant.” This feature made it easier for web sites to retrieve registration and demographic information from users who had previously provided that information. Frequently used information such as user name, address, and the like was stored securely in protected storage on the client computer. Web servers could request to read this information, but it was shared only if users gave their consent in a pop-up request box each time a site was visited.
While the profile assistant provided a potential solution to the aforementioned problems, in practice it has not enjoyed widespread success. For example, it required that each web site write script to request information from the user's stored information. If the user declined to grant permission to share the information, the solution was effectively thwarted. Moreover, the solution was limited to certain predefined fields that were commonly used across different web sites, with no easy way to add new fields. It was also inconvenient and time consuming for the user to complete a full profile and store it on the user's machine. Finally, some users viewed the function as intrusive because it required immediate user input to confirm that the feature should be enabled each time a web site was visited.
A prior art data schema known as the “vCard” schema has been used for certain frequently referenced data fields across application programs. This schema established certain standardized field identifiers that were to be used for the same data fields, and was intended to facilitate the transfer of personal profile information among applications. For example, the following is an example of a vCard:
begin:vcard
n:Doe, John
tel;cell:415 555 1212
tel;fax:415 555 1212
tel;work:415 555 1212
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
org:One & Co.
version:2.1
email;internet:cathy@oneandco.com
adr;quoted-printable:;;247 4th St. #105=0D=0A;Oakland;Ca.;94607;USA
x-mozilla-cpt:;;3
fn: John
end:vcardwas
Using this schema, specific fields can be identified regardless of the form or application program into which the user's name was to be entered. (The user would most likely only see a label such as “First Name.”) This schema does not, however, solve the aforementioned problems. As one example, it is difficult to force millions of web sites to conform to standard field identifiers or to retrofit existing web pages to the existing schema. Moreover, as new fields are introduced, universal agreement must be reached on what those fields represent and what their identifiers will be.
The prior art provides tools to suggest previously used values to a computer user when prompting the user for information. For example, some e-mail programs suggest possible recipient names in the “to” field which match previously stored user names. When the user types the first character of a recipient's name, a possible choice that matches the first character appears in the field. As another example, well-known Internet browsers provide a user with a pull-down menu of choices in an Internet browser address field, such that the user can review previously used web site addresses in order to select an address.
These conventional techniques, however, suffer from many of the same disadvantages as the aforementioned solutions. The application program itself (i.e., the e-mail program) must be specially modified to support the feature, and previously used field values cannot be shared among other application programs on the same computer unless those applications are also modified. Moreover, all application programs would need to adopt standard field identifiers in order for the scheme to work properly.
Internet web pages containing form fields create special problems, because each web site defines the format and behavior of its own forms, and there is no easy way to share or suggest previously entered data values across different web sites or servers. Moreover, because of privacy concerns, sharing previously entered form values for different web sites may be undesirable or even impossible in many cases.
In summary, user interfaces such as those provided by application programs and web-based forms frequently request the same or similar information from a user. Challenges posed by this problem include: (a) determining how to decrease redundant data entry across form fields (whether the same form or a different form containing a common field); (b) decreasing the redundant data entry without requiring changes to the forms themselves; (c) encouraging the adoption of standard field descriptors across applications, web sites and web pages; and (d) preventing unauthorized access to information that has been entered by a user.